Improving universal credit

When Universal Credit has been fully rolled out to all new and existing benefit claimants (due to be the case by the end of 2023), it will be paid to over a quarter of households in the UK. It is therefore vital that it operates smoothly in order to protect the most vulnerable in society. A cross-party group of UK members of parliament has been examining the difficulties experienced with universal credit to date and has made recommendations of ways in which it believes the UK government should improve the system. These include:

  • The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) needs to abolish the five week wait for Universal Credit
  • Claimants should be paid twice-monthly by default
  • All claimants should have the option of direct payments to their landlord from the start of the claim
  • For claimants with a history of rent arrears or debt, direct payments should be by default

The full report can be found here.

Similar recommendations were made by Scottish MSPs recently with input from the SAL chief executive John Blackwood as we reported here.